PURPOSE With the rapid growth in the older inmate population, emerging issues regarding physical and mental health require greater research and clinical attention. We examined the relation of religiousness/spirituality; demographic characteristics such as age, race, and type of crime; and physical and mental health among 73 older male inmates in the state of Alabama. DESIGN AND METHODS Inmate...

The limits of Henriques' "overarching conceptions" approach to defining psychology is first tested by comparing and contrasting his conceptions to two burgeoning movements within psychology: qualitative research and spiritual therapy strategies. These movements were selected because they represent many other fragments of a fragmented psychology that could fall outside Henriques' disciplinary ma...

The study of the Shamanistic State of Consciousness (SSC) is the focus of much current psychological interest. Harner (1980, 1988a)defines the SSC as a mental condition distinct from the Ordinary State of Consciousness (OSC) which is exclusively focused on external events and experiences. The SSC is synonymous with visualizing or imaging; it is akin to the "lucid" or "waking-dream," a dream in ...

BACKGROUND Spirituality is recognized as a personally important matter to the elderly, and there are evidences of its impact on their health. The aim of this study was to explore the concept of spirituality from the perspectives of Iranian healthy elderly individuals. MATERIALS AND METHODS A conventional qualitative content analysis of carried out with 21 healthy elderly people from both male...

Posttraumatic growth denotes positive psychological change after a traumatic experience that is an improvement over the state before the trauma. Inasmuch as it involves existential reevaluation, posttraumatic growth overlaps with spiritual change, although it also encompasses other domains of positive outcome. This study investigated posttraumatic growth and presence and depth of near-death exp...

Chaplaincy Today • Volume 23 Number 2 • Autumn/Winter 2007 Medical practitioners and researchers continue to explore the association between spiritual/religious (SR) concerns and illness and medical care. Koenig et al. summarize over 1600 publications that describe this relationship. In a previous publication, we reported the statistically significant web of associations between the personal/pr...

This study describes the learning effects of thematic peer-review discussion groups (Hendriksen, 2000. Begeleid intervisie model, Collegiale advisering en probleemoplossing, Nelissen, Baarn.) on developing nursing students' competence in providing spiritual care. It also discusses the factors that might influence the learning process. The method of peer-review is a form of reflective learning b...

BACKGROUND Although numerous studies have reported about coping strategies among health care worker throughout the world, but no research-based data are available on the perception of coping strategy among Clinical nurses in the Islamic Republic of Iran. OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to describe and explore the experiences of Iranian nurses about their coping strategies. METHOD...

A recent study of the relationship between spiritual experience and psychopathology (reported in detail elsewhere) suggested that psychotic phenomena could occur in the context of spiritual experiences rather than mental illness. In the present paper, this finding is illustrated with three detailed case histories. Its implications are then explored for psychopathology, for psychiatric classific...